Congratulations! By assessing your organizations remote maturity, you've already completed the first step toward creating a remote transition plan. As you've recently seen, going remote is a multi step process with many elements to take into consideration. The goal of this course is to prepare you for that process. From this point forward in the course, you'll be working toward a final goal of creating a transition plan outline, which you'll be able to use in a real life situation. Step one was assessing your organizations maturity level and now let's look at the following transition steps that should be included in your plan. For an organization to effectively go remote, adoption needs to begin at the top. Leadership needs to understand and agree with reasons for remote adaptation and to sign of- on the transition plan. During this process, it's possible that leadership will lean toward a hybrid remote solution as we've covered in this course, hybrid remote models can be much more difficult to execute in maintain. Steer away from that outcome if you can, and instead advise executives on the various types of remote teams and how to move through them toward a remote first or all remote model. Leadership should be clear on what practices and processes will change and how. It may be helpful to hire a remote transition consultant or Head of Remote to advise and guide this process. Once leadership is in agreement, waste no time. Have the executive team begin working remotely. This sends the clearest signal that the transition is underway, and has executive sponsorship. Begin building your remote infrastructure immediately, as it can take some time to transition everyone to a streamlined system of tools, practices, and services. As we've mentioned before, a good way to begin this process is to ask yourself what would happen if every team member chose to work from home tomorrow? Where would communication breakdown? What types of access to information would people need? What would be the security risks? Would everyone on the team be equally well equipped to do their job? Consider the tools you're already using that you can continue to use as a fully remote team and then assess new tools that will empower you to operate remotely. For inspiration, see the linked resources for information on GitLab's tool stack. Using this course as a guide, start making decisions about processes and best practices to carry you through your remote transition. Your remote infrastructure should also include plans for how you'll address some of the challenges of remote work. Plan for how you'll create opportunities for people to connect in person on a regular basis such as company retreats or team gatherings. Understand how you will support your team members in professional development by subsidizing education and skill building at conferences, by taking courses, through formal mentoring and so on. Then develop a structure for informal communications with guidance for casual coffee chats, social calls, networking opportunities, chat channels, and so forth. You can even begin implementing these tactics right away to lay the groundwork for relationships that will continue to grow in a remote environment. Documenting your culture means developing a robust handbook and a plan to maintain it. Your handbook will contain all the best practices and processes you created in the previous step, as well as codes of conduct, company values, and other cultural information. This is a major process and it's key to rolling out a successful transition. Give this step the time it requires, which can be several weeks or even months. Include a plan for how you'll reinforce the handbook as a single source of truth. That said, there are some things that can't fit into a handbook. Consider whether you'll need, for example, a secure system for allowing individuals to access information according to their access level. You're creative teams may need specific tools for documenting and collaborating on work in progress, and if you have a large library of digital assets, you may need a strong cloud based asset management system. Calendaring and scheduling may also need to be reconsidered for remote teams. This step is when the remote transition really begins to pick up speed because Step 5 is when you'll start actively empowering team members to work remotely. Start that process by building enthusiasm and reassuring your team. There may be resistance to a remote transition for many reasons. Clear and proactive internal communication is essential to combating fear of the unknown and creating excitement about the increased autonomy. We recommend hosting Q and A sessions to better understand your team members concerns and perspectives. At the same time, prepare team members with the knowledge and support they'll need in their remote roles. Consider creating a guide to remote work or encourage team members to take GitLab's free certification on remote work readiness which is linked in the resources. As part of this step, you'll also be issuing and reimbursing equipment for anyone who needs it, which may be everyone. Don't cut corners in this process. It's an important investment and can be very meaningful to your team. Consider hiring workspace consultants to help you in this process. If the goal is for 100% of your team to have comfortable an ergonomic workspaces, what should you consider? For many organizations, providing laptops is a necessary step. Most organizations will choose to reimburse employee expenses on desks, chairs, and other equipment. Many teams will also reimburse co-working memberships, which can be especially beneficial in a remote transition for employees who thrive in an office environment. Now we've just covered steps one through six in a seven step process. To get to this point in your remote transition, it may take your organization several months or even years. If you keep moving forward, learning and applying your learnings as you go, you will eventually determine that your team is ready for the final step in the process, closing the office. We'll discuss that very important step. Next, for more on planning your remote transition, please see the linked resources. [MUSIC]
